Not with that attitude, kid. But alright, fine, maybe that's a little TOO extreme.
Wait a sec, what about the Adderall? What if I take some of that to counteract the other stuff? Then I could just pop more every time I start nodding off.
UH. It'll cancel some of the effects but not all of them and you'd be at risk of overdosing. Better than whatever he'd do. This is a really bad idea but it can work and I don't have another one.
Look at it this way, I already took like three of the other pills, so if I take three of these ones, that's not an overdose. That's just evening everything out.
It's like when you bake a cake and you add too much salt. What do you do? You pour in more sugar to drown out all the salt.
Drugs and cake aren't really a 1 to 1 comparison but if they are that sounds like a ruined cake to me.
Fuck it. If we end up there, I'll take them with you. In the meantime, we're going to carefully ride out what we got without adding anything to it, OKAY?
It sounds like every cake you ever had cuz that's what they're all like. I know the score, I got a B in home ec.
[He's starting to lose it again. No he's not tweaking, why would you say that—]
So what now, curly? We having a sleepover? We gonna make some popcorn and stay up swapping comics and takin bets on who's making out in the bathroom at the meat plant?
I still don't think drug intake works like sugar but I'll leave it to your B because I didn't even take Home Ec.
[ He really needs to start charging instead of being nice and just handing pills out like candy. Look what happened. ]
Ugh. What? I wouldn't even trust going pee in that bathroom. But, yeah, I'll watch you. I'll come to you since you're probably not going to be entirely level on your feet. Where are you?
At the ski lodge. I saw a bunch of pizza boxes in the lobby the last time I was here. If whoever's been squatting here can get their hands on pizza, I figured coffee wouldn't be too much of a stretch for them either.
[Goes to show you what optimism gets you. Lampkin Lane's the only other place he can think of that might have coffee, but he crosses that possibility off pretty damn quickly. He's just as keen about going to that street as Quentin is about going to the preschool — or about going to the cabin.]
I didn't find any, but check this out:
[The next message is a picture of what looks like a modified flashbang grenade. A trail of exposed wiring — half-buried in a small mound of snow — connects the grenade to the side panel of a deactivated generator.]
What do you think? It looks like one of Leon's, right?
Legion gets to have pizza? I know they have those Never Sleep pills but I haven’t heard any word about a cup of coffee.
[ He wants pizza. Maybe Dwight will show up in a match with boxes of delivery. He’s a pizza guy, right? He’s so tired he could probably eat a moldy piece even. As long as it’s not people like every dessert. ]
I don’t wanna screw up any positive interactions I’ve been having with them by getting caught with you riffling through their stuff so just meet me by the exit when you’re done. I’ll wait here.
[ There’s a little pause here, he’s tilting leaning against the wall tilting the picture around to try and figure it out. ]
Yeah. It does. What is it doing there? You’re the engineer.
Uh-huh. Sounds like you want them to comp you a slice next time they order some.
[He's kidding, mostly.
There's a pause before his next reply as he studies the device, noting the marks in the snow around it, as if someone had been trying to cover it up. It would explain why he had to dig it out; he only saw it because the wires were sticking out.]
I don't know, but it looks half-done. I can't find any tools around either.
Actually, wait, you know what this looks like? It's like those traps Jill uses, the ones that explode when you hit them? She must've been through here recently.
[ They don't really eat here but he feels hungry a lot, probably as a side-effect of operating as he does, and there's nothing to do about it. Just missing the small comfort of pizza, is all.
He blinks, slowly, at the image as he studies it. And again, longer. His nose running. The cold here makes him so numb. It's so exhausting. He leans on the wall more, shifting his feet. He should tell Ash to get a move on but: ]
Yeah? Any of it salvageable? Those traps she makes are really useful. We can bring some of it back and maybe she can make us another one.
Maybe. It'd have to be really good pizza for me to risk getting stabbed in the spleen for.
[It's been a really long time since he's had pizza too, not since— well. Way before he went to the cabin, put it that way. Back when he and Scotty were still cramming for midterms. Feels like an eternity ago. Hell, considering where they are, maybe it is. It's only getting harder to keep track of time here.]
If she's in a good mood. [He's not holding his breath. She's a cop, and every cop in Ash's life has always been some flavor of dickhead. Leon's the exception, but even then, Ash feels like he's stuck waiting for the other shoe to drop.] Give me enough time to study it and I could probably throw one together. At least it'd give me something to do. You're at the west gate, right?
[ He had pizza, maybe-- a day before he got here. In hindsight, he probably shouldn't have an entirely good association with it. It was basically his last meal. Two slices of pizza, four energy drinks, a cup of coffee, an unknown amount of pills, and a cupcake his dad offered him. Shit. He thinks he could estimate a time. If he counts every time the Entity hands them cake or flans as a year. Maybe. The days all blur together for him. ]
Is she not nice? I never really talked to her. [ He doesn't have the greatest opinion on cops himself, just based on the fact that they arrested his one friend in the entire world for a crime he never committed and he died defenseless locked in his cell because of it. He doesn't know what happened but it doesn't paint a pretty picture. Leon, Tapp, Jill, Chris-- they seem nice enough. Leon's more sociable. ] You're not going to build one right now, are you? How long would that even take?
[ Quentin sits down, against his better judgement. Sliding his back down the bricks. Fuck. How many hours is he on? That keeping track of time thing is kind of important. He rubs his face, cheeks too numb for that to make a difference. ] Yup. West.
Going by the amount of boxes they got in here, you can't say they don't have enough to spare.
[You can't say that the Entity doesn't reward its followers either. Where else would they get it from? If what Susie said was true and they all live in fear of getting on its bad side, little gifts like that would be a good way to boost morale, keep them from getting too rebellious. And if it manages to make them forget the hellish reality they're trapped in for an hour so it can feed on all that yummy hope, all the better.]
Probably longer than we can risk staying here. Just hang tight, I'm on my way.
[Literally — he's texting as he walks, holding the unfinished blast mine against his chest. Probably not the safest way to transport it, but give him a break. He only has two hands.]
Not surprising. It is four teenagers that run a lot.
[ "You're going to need enough to feed all the Ninja Turtles," he thinks he types on to that. Do the turtles exist for Ash? He has no idea if this reference is going to drop off and he's too tired to explain it. Positive reinforcement with gifts in the form of pizza and flashy outfits. He wonders what that says about people like Feng, who have received many little "gifts" versus people like Ash and him, who don't have a lot to their name here. He'd bring the pizza origin debate up for discussion and ask if he knows comic books
but the reality of the matter is that Quentin's head is lulled forward, eyes dropping like dead weights. ]
K
[ He usually writes 'okay' all the way out and adds the punctuation. The phone is slowly tipping out of his hand. Time is really really hard to keep track of and eventually it catches up. ]
[Slowly tipping but not far enough. Ash's reply is his last one, the words glowing brightly between Quentin's fingers as his grip begins to go slack. Ormond is as bleak as it's always been. The wind may have died down but it's every bit as frigid as the first blast that hit Quentin head-on when he first came through the gates, stepping foot on the icy grounds.
Five minutes later, it begins to snow.
At the ten minute mark, long after Ash's final message, Quentin's phone begins to vibrate. The screen lights up with a notification for a new message.]
DAD Hey birthday boy, I'm picking up ice cream on my way home. What flavor do you want: mint chocolate chip or cookie dough?
[ A snowflake falls on Quentin's cheek, a sensation he feels through any numbness somehow. The cold hits him all over again, like it's new, like he just reentered the place. He shivers, eyes wide and looking around - something's wrong but it's not. He takes a deep breath. And he waits, not realizing anything changed at first.
Ash is taking a really long time, he thinks. He wants to express some urgency here and text him back. He thinks he does even. Various ways to ask "Where are you?" in nice terms that grow in increasing in urgency. It's snowing. It's really cold. He had pushed himself to stand before the ten minute mark, already taking a few steps into the snow to venture in after Ash.
Quentin reads the text with a hitched breath and his entire being tenses. There comes a point in every dream, usually almost instantly with him but it's not always the case despite trying to train it that way, when it switches into lucid dreaming. This is one of those moments. There's an ache in his chest that feels tight as panic sets in. He's gotten this text before, in real life. Mint chocolate chip? That's his favorite. Cookie dough, second. Quentin always says both. One scoop each. Did that ever since he was a kid. ]
Shit.
[ He doesn't respond to the text, instead opting to hit call on Ash's number, hanging up, hitting it again. As if doing it will will his sleeping body to hit it. (It doesn't). He grips and un-grips the hand not currently clutching a phone now, nervously taps it against his thigh while the other hand's thumb is rapidly hitting the call button. Ring. Hang up. Ring. Hang up. ]
Hurry up, hurry up, come back-
[ If he uses the outside exit, would it work as a dream exit too? ]
[ Quentin knows his dad would actually go looking for him. The man would do anything for him, which is something he always knew but doesn't think he appreciated fully until it was too late. He knows he's safe, back home, and won't be killed like Nancy's mom - probably was going to be saved for last so the man had to suffer completely, losing his kid and everything. Quentin trapped them both here with the Entity before he could manage killing the last kids left.
And Alan Smith suffers anyway. He watches the messages come in with increasing horror and glossy eyes. Then there's one that let's him keep his composure. He swallows, hard. Takes a deep breath and looks away from the phone, expression irate. Nancy wouldn't be looking, she knew too much to go to his dad like that. ]
You're slipping! [ It's a completely mocking tone just called out into the snowy void, which isn't exactly a good idea. He knows. He knows. But he says it anyway, out of spite.
He takes more steps into the snow, leaning down and grabbing a handfuls of it and stuffing it down his shirt. The cold sending a sharp shiver up his body but he's still asleep. It didn't work. He bites his finger, hard until it draws blood (not working either) as he wanders further in and looks around for something to use as a weapon. ]
[The sound of the wind answers Quentin back. Gnarled branches stripped clean like old bones rattle against the roof of the delipidated wooden shack he wanders past, the noise shrill and scratchy like nails on a chalkboard, like claws on rusty metal pipes. Blood wells up from the newly bitten hole in his finger as he continues to walk, trickling down. A droplet hits his phone… and rolls up the screen, almost imperceptibly, as if being drawn in via magnet. It’s sucked into the receiver, disappearing in the blink of an eye.
Suddenly, Quentin’s phone begins to vibrate harshly. He’s getting a call. The screen dims as the caller’s name lights up at the top —DAD — and the green bar at the bottom flashes, inviting him to swipe his thumb across.
It doesn’t stop. Even as the wind continues to pick up and the cold turns frigid, his phone never stops ringing.]
[ It shouldn't sound like that. He's been to Ormond a million and one times now. He knows how it sounds. The howling wind, the sound of crunching snow, the fire in the distance crackling. The sounds here are distinct. Quentin finds himself staring at the shack as he passes it because he also knows that sound he's hearing is distinct from somewhere else. Somewhere he'd rather not be.
His finger hurts more than it should and he balls his hand tighter around the phone until the sound of it going off and vibrating makes him flinch. He looks down at it, hoping it's ringing in reality and it's enough to snap him up. The name isn't Ash though. He lowers it at first, holding a breath and trying to continue his futile search for something to jolt him up. He picks up a stick and test swings it, only for it to crumble. He throws it down.
It doesn't stop. His eyes water from stress and his nose starts running from the cold. He huffs and swipes across the phone with his pointer, just smearing blood across it and then rubbing it quickly against his pants and trying again with his thumb. He holds it to his ear. His tone comes out harsh, volatile. Go on, Freddy. Do the spiel. ]
[The raspy voice that answers Quentin back isn't Alan Smith's — small miracle — but it's a familiar one all the same.
"Give daddy some sugar."
Something fat and wet plods at Quentin's chin like a worm. Extending from the receiver of his phone is a pink tongue, inhumanly long and flexible. It scrabbles around in the air like a snake that's been yanked out of its habitat, obscenely dragging itself along the seam of Quentin's lips, torn between trying to push its way inside his mouth and wrap itself around his neck.
The high-pitched, grinding shriek of metal against metal trills through the phone. Beneath it, the voice laughs at Quentin from out of the black as the tongue continues to extend out of the speaker to an impossible length.]
[ It's a small miracle he doesn't use his dad further against him more. The voice would still get to him a small fraction, even though it wouldn't hit as hard as Freddy would have liked with the dreamer being too self-aware in here for the charade.
He walked right into that 'daddy' line, didn't he? ] UGH! [ Quentin makes a loud sound of disgust and openly screams at it, turning his head in a flinch.
Quentin jerks his head away from the phone as far as he can manage, trying to throw it on the floor. He backfires, causing himself to gasp for air by yanking something now wrapped wormed around his neck. He bites down at what's against his lips, which turns out to be a horrible idea. He just retches, which is not great for breathing. He keeps his mouth pressed together tightly and resorts to grasping at it frantically with his nails and tearing the slimy flesh away from his face in pieces.
Quentin's foot stomps his phone to broken shattered pieces in an attempt to cap the length and stop that grinding metal sound making his head throb. And then keeps stomping some more once it's broken beyond recognition. The tongue away from his face and he keeps hitting it, over and over, stomping the pieces hoping to pulverize it completely. The disgusting squishing of meat all over his shoes and coloring the snow. ]
[Something in the snow catches Quentin by the foot. It holds him in place, gripping his shoe tightly as a pool of blood starts to form under the remains of his phone and the still-twitching pieces of tongue strewn around the ground. They sink down into the puddle like rocks and disappear with a nasty squelch.
The shape in the snow takes form as it uses Quentin's leg to pull itself out of the puddle. A hand formed out of solid blood wraps itself around his ankle. It's joined by a second hand, then the rest of the arm it's connected to. The figure uses Quentin's ankle and the ground for leverage as it hauls itself up out of the puddle, pulling him closer as it crawls forward.
It takes its time getting to its feet like it has all the time in the world. Technically, it does. Hours could go by in a dream without a second passing in the waking world. Years, too. In here, they have nothing but time.
"So much for the cat and mouse bullshit."
Freddy Krueger's smile unfolds on his face like a gash as he looks down at Quentin. He opens his arms wide as he takes an easy step forward, then another, as if preparing to welcome Quentin home with an embrace.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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Wait a sec, what about the Adderall? What if I take some of that to counteract the other stuff? Then I could just pop more every time I start nodding off.
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UH. It'll cancel some of the effects but not all of them and you'd be at risk of overdosing. Better than whatever he'd do. This is a really bad idea but it can work and I don't have another one.
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It's like when you bake a cake and you add too much salt. What do you do? You pour in more sugar to drown out all the salt.
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Fuck it.
If we end up there, I'll take them with you. In the meantime, we're going to carefully ride out what we got without adding anything to it, OKAY?
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[He's starting to lose it again. No he's not tweaking, why would you say that—]
So what now, curly? We having a sleepover? We gonna make some popcorn and stay up swapping comics and takin bets on who's making out in the bathroom at the meat plant?
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[ He really needs to start charging instead of being nice and just handing pills out like candy. Look what happened. ]
Ugh. What? I wouldn't even trust going pee in that bathroom.
But, yeah, I'll watch you. I'll come to you since you're probably not going to be entirely level on your feet. Where are you?
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[Goes to show you what optimism gets you. Lampkin Lane's the only other place he can think of that might have coffee, but he crosses that possibility off pretty damn quickly. He's just as keen about going to that street as Quentin is about going to the preschool — or about going to the cabin.]
I didn't find any, but check this out:
[The next message is a picture of what looks like a modified flashbang grenade. A trail of exposed wiring — half-buried in a small mound of snow — connects the grenade to the side panel of a deactivated generator.]
What do you think? It looks like one of Leon's, right?
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[ He wants pizza. Maybe Dwight will show up in a match with boxes of delivery. He’s a pizza guy, right? He’s so tired he could probably eat a moldy piece even. As long as it’s not people like every dessert. ]
I don’t wanna screw up any positive interactions I’ve been having with them by getting caught with you riffling through their stuff so just meet me by the exit when you’re done. I’ll wait here.
[ There’s a little pause here, he’s tilting leaning against the wall tilting the picture around to try and figure it out. ]
Yeah. It does. What is it doing there? You’re the engineer.
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[He's kidding, mostly.
There's a pause before his next reply as he studies the device, noting the marks in the snow around it, as if someone had been trying to cover it up. It would explain why he had to dig it out; he only saw it because the wires were sticking out.]
I don't know, but it looks half-done. I can't find any tools around either.
Actually, wait, you know what this looks like? It's like those traps Jill uses, the ones that explode when you hit them? She must've been through here recently.
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[ They don't really eat here but he feels hungry a lot, probably as a side-effect of operating as he does, and there's nothing to do about it. Just missing the small comfort of pizza, is all.
He blinks, slowly, at the image as he studies it. And again, longer. His nose running. The cold here makes him so numb. It's so exhausting. He leans on the wall more, shifting his feet. He should tell Ash to get a move on but: ]
Yeah? Any of it salvageable? Those traps she makes are really useful. We can bring some of it back and maybe she can make us another one.
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[It's been a really long time since he's had pizza too, not since— well. Way before he went to the cabin, put it that way. Back when he and Scotty were still cramming for midterms. Feels like an eternity ago. Hell, considering where they are, maybe it is. It's only getting harder to keep track of time here.]
If she's in a good mood. [He's not holding his breath. She's a cop, and every cop in Ash's life has always been some flavor of dickhead. Leon's the exception, but even then, Ash feels like he's stuck waiting for the other shoe to drop.] Give me enough time to study it and I could probably throw one together. At least it'd give me something to do. You're at the west gate, right?
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[ He had pizza, maybe-- a day before he got here. In hindsight, he probably shouldn't have an entirely good association with it. It was basically his last meal. Two slices of pizza, four energy drinks, a cup of coffee, an unknown amount of pills, and a cupcake his dad offered him. Shit. He thinks he could estimate a time. If he counts every time the Entity hands them cake or flans as a year. Maybe. The days all blur together for him. ]
Is she not nice? I never really talked to her. [ He doesn't have the greatest opinion on cops himself, just based on the fact that they arrested his one friend in the entire world for a crime he never committed and he died defenseless locked in his cell because of it. He doesn't know what happened but it doesn't paint a pretty picture. Leon, Tapp, Jill, Chris-- they seem nice enough. Leon's more sociable. ] You're not going to build one right now, are you? How long would that even take?
[ Quentin sits down, against his better judgement. Sliding his back down the bricks. Fuck. How many hours is he on? That keeping track of time thing is kind of important. He rubs his face, cheeks too numb for that to make a difference. ] Yup. West.
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[You can't say that the Entity doesn't reward its followers either. Where else would they get it from? If what Susie said was true and they all live in fear of getting on its bad side, little gifts like that would be a good way to boost morale, keep them from getting too rebellious. And if it manages to make them forget the hellish reality they're trapped in for an hour so it can feed on all that yummy hope, all the better.]
Probably longer than we can risk staying here. Just hang tight, I'm on my way.
[Literally — he's texting as he walks, holding the unfinished blast mine against his chest. Probably not the safest way to transport it, but give him a break. He only has two hands.]
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[ "You're going to need enough to feed all the Ninja Turtles," he thinks he types on to that. Do the turtles exist for Ash? He has no idea if this reference is going to drop off and he's too tired to explain it. Positive reinforcement with gifts in the form of pizza and flashy outfits. He wonders what that says about people like Feng, who have received many little "gifts" versus people like Ash and him, who don't have a lot to their name here. He'd bring the pizza origin debate up for discussion and ask if he knows comic books
but the reality of the matter is that Quentin's head is lulled forward, eyes dropping like dead weights. ]
K
[ He usually writes 'okay' all the way out and adds the punctuation. The phone is slowly tipping out of his hand. Time is really really hard to keep track of and eventually it catches up. ]
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Five minutes later, it begins to snow.
At the ten minute mark, long after Ash's final message, Quentin's phone begins to vibrate. The screen lights up with a notification for a new message.]
DAD
Hey birthday boy, I'm picking up ice cream on my way home. What flavor do you want: mint chocolate chip or cookie dough?
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Ash is taking a really long time, he thinks. He wants to express some urgency here and text him back. He thinks he does even. Various ways to ask "Where are you?" in nice terms that grow in increasing in urgency. It's snowing. It's really cold. He had pushed himself to stand before the ten minute mark, already taking a few steps into the snow to venture in after Ash.
Quentin reads the text with a hitched breath and his entire being tenses. There comes a point in every dream, usually almost instantly with him but it's not always the case despite trying to train it that way, when it switches into lucid dreaming. This is one of those moments. There's an ache in his chest that feels tight as panic sets in. He's gotten this text before, in real life. Mint chocolate chip? That's his favorite. Cookie dough, second. Quentin always says both. One scoop each. Did that ever since he was a kid. ]
Shit.
[ He doesn't respond to the text, instead opting to hit call on Ash's number, hanging up, hitting it again. As if doing it will will his sleeping body to hit it. (It doesn't). He grips and un-grips the hand not currently clutching a phone now, nervously taps it against his thigh while the other hand's thumb is rapidly hitting the call button. Ring. Hang up. Ring. Hang up. ]
Hurry up, hurry up, come back-
[ If he uses the outside exit, would it work as a dream exit too? ]
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DAD
Hey, where are you? Call me when you can.
DAD
Quentin, call me right now.
DAD
Quentin
DAD
Please call me
DAD
Just got back from Nancy's house, she's looking for you, everyone's looking for you. You're not alone, please just talk to me
DAD
Quentin please
DAD
CALL ME RIGHT NOW
RIGHT NOW
RIGHT NOW
RIGHT NOW
RIGHT NOW
RIGHT NOW
[On and on until all Quentin's phone can do is vibrate.]
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And Alan Smith suffers anyway. He watches the messages come in with increasing horror and glossy eyes. Then there's one that let's him keep his composure. He swallows, hard. Takes a deep breath and looks away from the phone, expression irate. Nancy wouldn't be looking, she knew too much to go to his dad like that. ]
You're slipping! [ It's a completely mocking tone just called out into the snowy void, which isn't exactly a good idea. He knows. He knows. But he says it anyway, out of spite.
He takes more steps into the snow, leaning down and grabbing a handfuls of it and stuffing it down his shirt. The cold sending a sharp shiver up his body but he's still asleep. It didn't work. He bites his finger, hard until it draws blood (not working either) as he wanders further in and looks around for something to use as a weapon. ]
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Suddenly, Quentin’s phone begins to vibrate harshly. He’s getting a call. The screen dims as the caller’s name lights up at the top —DAD — and the green bar at the bottom flashes, inviting him to swipe his thumb across.
It doesn’t stop. Even as the wind continues to pick up and the cold turns frigid, his phone never stops ringing.]
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His finger hurts more than it should and he balls his hand tighter around the phone until the sound of it going off and vibrating makes him flinch. He looks down at it, hoping it's ringing in reality and it's enough to snap him up. The name isn't Ash though. He lowers it at first, holding a breath and trying to continue his futile search for something to jolt him up. He picks up a stick and test swings it, only for it to crumble. He throws it down.
It doesn't stop. His eyes water from stress and his nose starts running from the cold. He huffs and swipes across the phone with his pointer, just smearing blood across it and then rubbing it quickly against his pants and trying again with his thumb. He holds it to his ear. His tone comes out harsh, volatile. Go on, Freddy. Do the spiel. ]
Hi Dad.
cw: you know
"Give daddy some sugar."
Something fat and wet plods at Quentin's chin like a worm. Extending from the receiver of his phone is a pink tongue, inhumanly long and flexible. It scrabbles around in the air like a snake that's been yanked out of its habitat, obscenely dragging itself along the seam of Quentin's lips, torn between trying to push its way inside his mouth and wrap itself around his neck.
The high-pitched, grinding shriek of metal against metal trills through the phone. Beneath it, the voice laughs at Quentin from out of the black as the tongue continues to extend out of the speaker to an impossible length.]
cw: 📞👅
He walked right into that 'daddy' line, didn't he? ] UGH! [ Quentin makes a loud sound of disgust and openly screams at it, turning his head in a flinch.
Quentin jerks his head away from the phone as far as he can manage, trying to throw it on the floor. He backfires, causing himself to gasp for air by yanking something now wrapped wormed around his neck. He bites down at what's against his lips, which turns out to be a horrible idea. He just retches, which is not great for breathing. He keeps his mouth pressed together tightly and resorts to grasping at it frantically with his nails and tearing the slimy flesh away from his face in pieces.
Quentin's foot stomps his phone to broken shattered pieces in an attempt to cap the length and stop that grinding metal sound making his head throb. And then keeps stomping some more once it's broken beyond recognition. The tongue away from his face and he keeps hitting it, over and over, stomping the pieces hoping to pulverize it completely. The disgusting squishing of meat all over his shoes and coloring the snow. ]
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The shape in the snow takes form as it uses Quentin's leg to pull itself out of the puddle. A hand formed out of solid blood wraps itself around his ankle. It's joined by a second hand, then the rest of the arm it's connected to. The figure uses Quentin's ankle and the ground for leverage as it hauls itself up out of the puddle, pulling him closer as it crawls forward.
It takes its time getting to its feet like it has all the time in the world. Technically, it does. Hours could go by in a dream without a second passing in the waking world. Years, too. In here, they have nothing but time.
"So much for the cat and mouse bullshit."
Freddy Krueger's smile unfolds on his face like a gash as he looks down at Quentin. He opens his arms wide as he takes an easy step forward, then another, as if preparing to welcome Quentin home with an embrace.
"Come to daddy."]
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